麻豆约拍

Former First Lady of France and singer songwriter Carla Bruni presents the first of three programmes where she tells her musical story, plays her favourite songs and celebrates the music of Paris.

Recorded in the same Champs-脡lys茅es studio where she produced her most recent album, Little French Songs, the programme features French, Italian and English music by Serge Gainsbourg, Francoise Hardy, John Lennon, The Velvet Underground, The Rolling Stones and Lucio Battisti.

The Italian-born, globetrotting model's music career began in 2002, when she released "Quelqu'un M'a Dit" (in English, "Someone Told Me"), a surprise hit, which sold two million copies in Europe. "It was wonderful to see how successful the album became, considering the fact that we produced it to be completely confidential."

Carla describes her musical upbringing in Turin: her mother, Marisa Borini, was a concert pianist who practiced seven hours a day and her father, Alberto Bruni-Tedeschi, composed twelve-tone music. The family moved to Paris when Carla was seven, and she credits her French Grandmother for instilling a love of the French language in her at an early age. "My maternal language would be Italian, but my great maternal language is French. Since I was raised by her most of the time, I probably got printed by French in my heart and soul."

As one of the highest earning models of the 90s, Carla reflects on being at the forefront of the fashion world, when she often walked the catwalk in unforgettable outfits, including a Vivienne Westwood fake fur g-string. "There was a lot of travelling, which was my dream when I was young. Modelling was an easy way of achieving independence."

Carla's time as the singing First Lady of France from 2008-2012 was not without controversies, including the feverous newspaper reaction to the Class A drug references in her song 'Tu Es Ma Came'. "If they make a little fuss, who minds? Not me," she says.